***Louis Tomlinson***
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 – North London, England

I cursed myself for making Harry upset so quickly after we’d had sex. We did need to address the issues, though, and we were on completely different pages, unable to communicate productively. But I was done making Harry Styles cry. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated myself every time I did it, and it had been a lot lately. We were so close to getting back together, and as stubborn as I was, I wasn’t going to let that opportunity slip out of my hands; it might be my last one, ever. So I went up to his room – I could hear him crying on the other side of his closed door – and turned the knob. It was locked. He never locked the door to his room, and whatever small amount of hope I’d had diminished. But my stubbornness didn’t, and I went to my room, got my guitar, then sat down on the floor outside of Harry’s bedroom and began playing. I hadn’t planned what song I would sing, it just flowed through my fingers as I began strumming the guitar, and then I started to sing a slow version of one of our favorite songs.

“Oh, I could hide, ‘neath the wings, of the bluebird as she sings/The six o’clock alarm would never ring/But it rings and I rise/Wipe the sleep out of my eyes/My shavin’ razor’s cold and it stings/Cheer up, Sleepy Jean/Oh what can it mean/To a daydream believer/And a homecoming queen.” I paused and listened. I heard silence from Harry’s room, meaning he wasn’t crying anymore, so I continued. “You once thought of me/As a white knight on a steed/Now you know how happy I can be/Oh, and our good times start and end/Without dollar one to spend/But how much baby do we really need?” Harry opened the door of his room, sat down next to me, and then sang the chorus again with me. When I finished playing, I set the guitar down on the floor and looked at him. His face was serious.

“So,” he said, his tone matching the seriousness on his face, “am I the daydream believer, or the homecoming queen?” A smile spread across my face as tears spilled from my eyes without warning, and I burst into laughter and sobs at the same time. I threw my arms around Harry’s neck and we hugged and cried together, knowing it would finally be okay.

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking. We went into Harry’s room, closed and locked the door, and promised we wouldn’t leave until we got everything off of our chests that we needed to say. We promised to talk, not fight or argue, and we both held true to that promise. It was hard for me – really hard – to express in words all the emotions I’d been feeling over the past week and a half, but if that was what it took to save my relationship, then I would do it for Harry.

There were tears. A lot of tears, from both of us, as we both remembered all the pain and heartache we’d been dealing with. There was a lot of hugging and cuddling. There was some joking around. There were some smiles. And, finally, there was compromise.

Harry explained to me that he simply just wasn’t ready to let the world know he was gay. He said that would be the case whether he was in the public eye or not, and that it had nothing to do with me because he wouldn’t be able to come out whether he was with me, someone else, or single. That made me feel better from a selfish stand point, because it made me finally see he wasn’t trying to hide me; it wasn’t me that he was embarrassed of. But it made me sad for him, because it meant he was still trying to hide himself and who he truly was as he had done his entire life, and there was nothing about Harry that should be kept hidden from the world. He promised me that as soon as we were able to go public – both from Management’s approval and his readiness – he would take me out on tons of dates and flaunt me all around town to make up for the hiding.

I apologized to Harry for always making it seem like I didn’t care. I told him there was no one I cared about more in this world than him, and that I was just too guarded to say that sometimes. I told him he was good for me, he helped me open up, and I needed him to continue to be patient with me. I promised him I would work on it, and I would try and tell him how I was feeling without him having to prompt me for it. I also told him I would start telling him I loved him a lot more often so there would be no doubt in his mind.

We vowed to get rid of every single razor blade in the house. Cutting only made everything so much worse for ourselves and each other, and we needed to make things work this time. We needed our relationship to be healthy, and so we had to eliminate the unhealthy things that had brought us to the point of breaking up in the first place.

The car accident came up, and that was when most of the tears came out. We both still felt guilty about it. Neither one of us had forgiven ourselves yet. So Harry suggested we do that, right then and there: just forgive ourselves, simple as that. We forgave each other for it first, even though there was nothing to forgive each other for, and then I sobbed and fell into his arms and he held me and we cried and we said out loud that we forgave ourselves, and somehow that made me start to feel like I really did as well.

I told Harry I had never wanted to break up, not really, but it had seemed like there was no other option at the time, and I promised I would stop trying to push him away so much. He told me he was sorry for making me think that breaking up would ever be something he would want. We both apologized to each other for not fighting harder for us, for just letting Larry go so easily, and I knew that was something that had really caused us both a lot of pain. We swore we would fight, really fight, for the other one the next time (god forbid there was a next time), and we would try and stop fighting with each other as well.

We talked about how we needed to make it up to the other three guys in the band for all the drama. The fight between the five of us would never have happened had Harry and I not broken up, and even though the group fight didn’t last long we both still felt bad. Plus, they had all been there for both of us through this whole mess; they deserved a huge thank you.

By the time we had finished talking, it was dark out. We were exhausted. We hadn’t eaten anything since late morning, but I wasn’t hungry, or if I was, I wasn’t about to let this moment go. I liked being locked in Harry’s room with him. It was safe in there. We were okay in there, and the rest of the world was so far away. We had forgiven each other completely for the break up, and my heart was on the mend.

Harry laid down on his bed and I climbed under the covers with him.

“I’m so sorry, Love,” I apologized for the ninetieth time that day.

“Shh,” he kissed me on the head. “I’m sorry, too.”

“I love you,” I said, determined to hold true to my promise.

“I love you, too,” he replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice as we held each other until much needed peaceful sleep overcame both of us.